During construction, both residential and commercial, an electrician will typically feed wires, such as a ROMEX® three wire power cable, from a power source (a breaker box for example in home construction) through the building to various end points and junction points such as switches, receptacles, and fixtures. Per National Electric Code (NEC), and other codes, the terminal points or junction points typically receive the three strand wire in an electrical box. Within such an electrical box different wires are joined so as to create electrical connections. Thus, for example, a supply wire brings power to a switch, and an outgoing wire from the switch leads to an electrical element such as a light fixture. Following the presently known methods of construction, an electrician can spend a significant amount of time in making the wire connections held within an electrical box. Wires must be individually stripped and joined, typically using wire nuts. Good electrical practice may call for an electrician to “pig tail” individual wires; i.e., joining common wire groups (power, return, and ground) in a common wire nut and leading a shorter wire “pig tail” to a switch or plug. This is a time consuming operation. It would be desired to provide construction means and methods that would allow the electrician to accelerate electrical wiring so as to achieve a time and labor savings.
Additionally, poor or substandard wire connections within an electrical box lead to a significant amount of inspection failures. When an electrical job receives an inspection failure, the electrician is generally required to return to the job side and devote additional construction time to correct the failure. It is desired to provide construction means and methods to minimize such failures. Further, the joining of electrical wires requires a certain level of skill and talent that is difficult for some individuals to achieve, and such junior electricians may encounter a higher degree of inspection failure. Thus, it would further be desired to provide construction means and methods that allow for an improved, robust electrical connection that can be more easily obtained, even for individuals of moderate skill, than present construction methods.
It would generally be desired that any improvement in electrical wiring construction be relatively inexpensive, compared to other alternatives. And further, it would be desired that improvements could be retrofit with existing equipment and applied to existing wiring configurations.
Hence there has been identified a need to provide an improved method and means for making electrical connections. It would be desired to provide an improved electrical box that could be used in both residential and commercial applications. It would further be desired to provide a quick connection electrical box that, while strong and robust in structure, can be retrofit into existing structures and wiring configurations. It is further desired to provide an improved electrical box that saves installation time for an electrician while minimizing the risk of inspection failures. The present invention addresses one or more of these needs.